KARWAR: Director of Tata Memorial Centre (TMC), Mumbai, Dr Rajendra Badwe, said that a health survey would be conducted within the Kaiga power generating station and also in villages in a five km radius of the station jointly by TMC and Kasturba Medical College, Manipal, shortly.
Addressing reporters at Kaiga Station on Saturday, he said that a report in this regard would be ready within three months. He added that urban areas would also be covered under the health survey later. “About one lakh people would be brought under the survey,” he added.
Badwe detailed that it was proposed to carry out such a survey in the villages around all nuclear installations in the country. He said that such a survey covering 25 lakh people had been completed in Mumbai.
Earlier, at a seminar on radiation and cancer organised here, he said that there was no correlation between nuclear radiation and cancer incidence. “Incidence of cancer cases are more in the North-East, including Mizoram and Kamrup, where there are no nuclear installations, than in places like Mumbai, Chennai and Kaiga, which have many nuclear installations,” Dr Badwe added.
Seeking to dispel fears that the power plant may pose health hazard, he said that a study conducted by Regional Cancer Centre, Thiruvananthapuram, in Karunagapally in Kerala, where vast deposits of thorium were found, had established that the people there were healthy.